And so we have it – we just came back from the Global Summit, CC’s bi-annual meeting of our global community, for another two years.

And the resounding opinion seems to be that this year’s Summit was a huge success. With over 300 attendees from over 50 countries and 5 days worth of events, it was our biggest meet up yet, and our first to have simultaneous language translation for most of the sessions. It had side events, keynotes, unconferencing, casual meet ups, and a rocking CC Salon.

the plenary panel on CC in the Real World, with inspirational projects such as Daniel Reetz’s DIY Scanner project and Valentín Basel’s educational robotics project, Fedora;

fruitful discussions about CC’s stance on copyright reform, both at the pre-event miniconference and throughout the Summit. Watch the CC blog for more news on the resulting statement soon.

the keynote by Lawrence Lessig at the University of Buenos Aires’ School of Law, during which he announced that he was teaming up with EFF to launch a landmark lawsuit against Liberation Music, who alleged copyright infringement when Lessig used part of one of its songs in a lecture he posted to Youtube. The suit could be an important precedent in defending fair use and setting limits on the overzealous copyright threats that to often occur on the internet.

If you missed out, you can find materials, including presentations and notes, on the Summit website. Watch for videos, which will be put up over the next few weeks.

This week we have two exciting announcements about our Global Summit, the bi-annual gathering of our community which will be held in Buenos Aires in August 2013.

First – we are pleased to confirm that Professor Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and one of Creative Commons’ founders and current Board members, will be presenting a keynote at this year’s Summit. Anyone familiar with Creative Commons is likely to be familiar with Professor Lessig, who for the last decade has been one of the leading advocates for a more open copyright system worldwide and a popular public face of CC. If you are one of the few people who are unfamiliar with Professor Lessig’s work, you can see an example of his inspirational speaking style in his TED talk from 2007, Laws that choke creativity (he also spoke on reform of US political funding in 2013). Details of the time and subject of Professor Lessig’s talk will be distributed closer to the event.

Second – registration for the Global Summit is officially open. You can find the registration form here. The event is free, but places are limited, so early registration is essential if you want to ensure your place at this meeting of CC commmunity, board, staff, and key stakeholders interested in the present and future of the commons.

Finally, while we have you, we’d also like to remind you that the call for papers for the Summit closes this week. Have you papers in by 24 May if you want to be on the main program (lightning talks and unconference sessions can be submitted later).

The Global Summit is Creative Commons’ biannual gathering of CC friends and family. In 2013 it will be held from 21-24 August in Buenos Aires, co-hosted by our local Creative Commons affiliates, Fundación Vía Libre and Wikimedia Argentina.

Attendees to the Summit will discuss strategies to strengthen Creative Commons and its worldwide community, learn about the latest developments in the commons movement worldwide, and showcase local and international projects that use Creative Commons licenses. It’s a great place to meet and present your ideas to the broader Creative Commons and open community. Most importantly, this will be our first ever Summit with a dedicated Spanish-language program.

We encourage anyone with something interesting to say about the present and future of the commons to apply. A Programming Committee consisting of members of the CC community will make the final decision on the program.

You have until 24 May to submit a session for the Summit. Submission forms and a more detailed explanation of the process can be found on our Global Summit wiki.